Kindred Spirits

It's amazing how we can be so alike someone and never even know it. I have found that as a pastor, sometimes we do not really get to know someone until they have died. There have been several times where I have talked with a family in order to plan a funeral, and I have been in awe of how the family sounds like they are actually talking about me...! How weird is that? Today I went to a funeral of an elderly woman from our congregation that died, and as the senior pastor spoke about her, I was a little weirded out that this woman sounded exactly like me! The organizing, setting and achieving goals, looking to the future sometimes too much, wanting to have structure and outline, details, worrying, quiet but a leader, etc. I was sitting there with an eerie feeling like, "Will this by my funeral someday?" But at the same time, I am constantly amazed that I can be so similar to another human being who has passed on, or who was in a completely different stage in life than myself. Life really does move in patterns- it's a circle. (Excuse me while I break into "Circle of Life"!) Seriously though...without being overly cheezy, life really is a circle, and it includes people who are our "kindred spirits" who we might not ever get the chance to meet until after they have died. Times may change, but people will always have those similarities as time goes on. Sometimes we are blessed to have known them, and sometimes we learn that their life was a mirror of our own after the fact. Either way, it is a blessing to know that I have other "kindred spirits" in this world, whether I have the privilege of actually knowing them or not.